During the mid-1990s reporter Nick Ryan spent two weeks visiting and living among the staff and students of reform school, Warleigh Manor, near Bath in England.

A shaven-headed burglar and self-confessed ram raider. An anaemic 14-year-old born to smackheads, praying to a willow called the 'Death Tree'. The gypsy child, destroying a bedroom in front of my eyes, playing out the memory of the beatings and bestiality visited upon him by his father.

These are some of the children held at Warleigh
Manor, a crumbling hall in a picturesque, secluded valley near Bath. Staff
at Warleigh marshall a unique combination of teaching therapies, incentives and near-unending
patience in their treatment of some of the country's most disturbed and
violent youngsters.

Despite a lack of resources, the school holds an excellent
record of achievement. It was in this place that my ear was slashed during
a riot, 75 windows were smashed, staff members attacked, and I witnessed "settling time", the bedtime period when nightmares return and
the violence begins. But I was also touched by the sincerity of some of
the kids, their thoughts and fears. Many had heart-rending stories.

I visited Warleigh twice in 1995, and spent a total of eight days at the
school, living amongst the children and staff. I spoke at length with
the care workers and the head Les Alderman, a pugnacious geordie who had
once played for Newcastle United.

I saw the kids' constant bravado, and
the jokes about homosexuality and parentage. I sat with staff at 3am,
drinking beer and sharing dark jokes about the kids - often the only way
to keep sane. Driving past Bath police station, for example, the chief
care worker (who had once taught English to Saudi royals) joked: "And
here we have our very own executive suite, don't we boys?"

*

They have come to be known as the 'Savage
Generation'. Twelve year olds convicted of rape; gangs of 10-year-olds
mugging elderly women; a 14-year-old running a school protection racket.

The press speaks of a growing hardcore
of children gone wild, responsible for a massive 50 percent increase in
violent crime amongst the 10-13 age group. One retiring magistrate has
labelled the trend "unbelievable, like something out of a horror
film".

Dealing with the hard edge of this uneasy mix of myth,
fear and outrage is Warleigh Manor, a unique 'last chance' reform school and rare
alternative to a secure unit (child prison). Home to delinquent (male) rapists, muggers,
burglars and other offenders, Warleigh nestles in a tiny valley just outside Bath.
Shrouded by woods and overlooking a meandering river, it resembles nothing more than a
genteel stately home - until you walk through the huge front doors.

"I want some fucking silence!" screams a gruff, powerfully-built teacher. Three
slouching youths in baseball caps promptly tell him to "Fuck off!" and carry on
arguing. A young skinhead runs out of the front doors and off down the road, pursued by a
carer. Somewhere a window breaks and a little kid wanders by, calling me a
"cunt".

This was just a short introduction to the first of two
visits to Warleigh. During this time, I had my ear slashed and witnessed a riot in which
75 windows were smashed, and staff were pelted with bricks and parts of the school
battlements.

Yet for all its seeming chaos, Warleigh turns around
problem kids with astonishing success. It has a GCSE pass rate to rival or better that of
many schools in Avon and prides itself on the number of its pupils who go on to college.

The kids are referred by their local education authority
or social services, at an annual cost exceeding £37,000 - greater than sending a child to
Eton or Harrow. However, many would otherwise be out on the streets or in secure units, at
perhaps a greater cost to society.

The headmaster Les Alderman, a pugnacious geordie,
smooths his bedraggled hair and admits: "It's a lot of hardwork and you've got to be
committed to these kids 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. After all, these are the most
difficult kids."

An ex-Newcastle United professional footballer, Alderman
has even gone into secure units to rescue children, as he sees it, from public ignorance
that pushes for greater custodial powers. "Whacking these kids and locking them up
doesn't make me feel better," he says.

Alderman was himself brought up in a children's home,
before qualifying as a secondary school teacher. He later became involved in special needs
education and worked in an approved school: "And I couldn't believe what I was
seeing. This was back in the Dark Ages, around 1965. And we haven't moved on from there.
We've only refined the system, not bettered it. Kids are being contained, not
treated."

Harnessing a combination of therapy and an 'open doors'
policy (there are no bars on the windows, and to a limited extent kids still have contact
with the outside world) Warleigh's philosophy is to help pupils tackle their own problems.
Pocket money is docked for violent behaviour and damage to the building (which is
frequent) and proves an ingenious way of controlling the children's rebellious natures. "They tend to leave most of the expensive stuff," jokes one of the teachers.

However, the 41 special needs staff at Warleigh have no legal jurisdiction to prevent a
child running away, and Alderman will sometimes have to provide them with travel cards and
living expenses if they insist on leaving. He takes this all in his stride: "There
are kids here who have emotional problems that put them in such pain today, that they need
to be contained - both for their sake and society's.".

Many of the pupils are suffering from physical, sexual
and emotional abuse and are often very angry. This anger may turn into violence and the
majority have been expelled from other schools (part of a massively growing trend which
Alderman calls "catastrophic").

Children I met, talked and ate with, as young as 11, had committed muggings,
burglaries and even attempted murder. One 13 stone 13-year-old even threw at knife at my
head - after knocking out a teacher - and I witnessed a huge riot after some of the older
boys attacked the block housing the younger kids. Even the care staff were shaken by the
ferocity of this attack, as they were showered with broken glass and pelted with bricks. I
also watched in amazement as a 14-year-old gypsy boy, a victim of bestiality, destroyed a
room before my eyes.

Unable to cope with the pain of their traumas, many
Warleigh pupils like this one have trouble with memories brought on by the (often violent)
"Settling Time". They simply can't cope with this bedtime period, when the
memories of childhood abuse flood back. They often snap.

"The behaviours that my kids display are only
symptoms of the damage that has been caused to them," says Alderman. "The
behaviours that so many people (the public at large) complain about are pathological and
therefore eminently treatable."

With an undercurrent of frustration, he adds:
"However, the main factor is a lack of good enough parenting that goes right across
social boundaries. We're talking about an age-old problem with a well-known
solution."

There is an undercurrent of dark humour shared by many of
the staff, who become experts in banter and street jive. One even joked to his charges as
they drove past Bath police station that "we have our very own executive suite
there." Yet as they sip beers after the night shift, there seems a sense of
depression and hopelessness about the situation. Authority budgets are shrinking and
politicians are keen to follow the American-style Boot Camp approach.

Les Alderman reflects ruefully before I leave: "On
the streets of St Petersburg (where he runs a charity for streetkids), I see absolutely
the same kids, the same faces, the same behaviours as here. In fact, the only place I've
come across where I see kids being locked up more often than they are here is in
Russia."